France's labour woes were compounded, and its image further sullied, by a 24-hour train drivers' strike set to start later on Tuesday and a walkout by junior doctors at teaching hospitals.

France was now all but guaranteed to start the World Cup,the planet's most watched sporting event, without its official airline, seriously disrupting air travel and stranding tens of thousands of soccer fans just when organisers had hoped to put French efficiency on show.

Pilots and management looked further apart than ever on Tuesday as Air France chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta, who has said he can no longer negotiate with pilots, planned a special board meeting for Wednesday or Thursday to impose new pay conditions.

The main SNPL pilots union reacted angrily to Spinetta's plan, saying such a move would provoke ``an irrevocable break''and prolong the walkout.

Air France was still mostly paralysed on Tuesday, able to ensure only 25 per cent of its flights.

The SNPL, which has followed the hardest line during the strike, was increasingly isolated, other unions, the public and the government rejecting its tough position.

Other pilots' unions have signalled their willingness to negotiate a pay cut on the basis of a cut in working time, and some unions representing ground crew and other staff accuse the pilots of selfishly putting the company's future at risk.

On Monday, about 40 non-unionised staff demonstrated against the pilots outside Air France headquarters. Polls show public opinion overwhelmingly opposed to the pilots, who are among the highest-paid state employees in the country. Head of the Socialist Union CFDT, Nicole Notat called on the pilots to give up their tactics.

``The pilots have to tell themselves that if they fly, it's because there is ground staff,'' Notat, who runs France's second-largest labour organisation,told French radio.

``One has to, at a certain point, ask whether the pilots'demands...justify this type of action, justify forgetting other staff, and justify the risk to other staff, not to mention the entire company,'' she said on Europe 1. She said Spinetta appeared justified in his plan to try to impose a settlement on the pilots, but cautioned that it should be done in consultation with other unions.

Air France says it has already lost a billion francs ($170 million) through lost ticket sales and charter fees, and the cost to the airline's prestige and future traffic, while hard to calculate, is certain to be heavy.

The effects of the strike were worsening by the day, French papers reported on Tuesday.

Airline caterer Servair, a unit of Air France, told daily Le Figaro the strike had already consumed any potential 1998 profit and predicted temporary layoffs if the walkout continued.

Biarritz airport, a typical provincial airport where Air France controls 90 per cent of the flights, was askingits 84 employees to take summer holidays ahead of schedule because of the lack of traffic, the paper said.

Airport operator Aeroports de Paris was also suffering financially from the strike, since Air France pays about 33 per cent of the company's receipts in landing taxes.

Fuel suppliers, airport store managers and car rental agencies were also hit.